The Church of Ireland Commemoration of St Patrick in 1932

Returning to
a Patrician theme for March 2013, this Archive of the Month will present a
selection of the literature produced for a programme of commemorations
organised by the Church of Ireland to mark the 1500th anniversary of
the coming of St Patrick to Ireland, in 1932.

A selection of the literature produced by the Church of Ireland for the 1932 commemoration

Last March
we demonstrated how Church of Ireland efforts to re–connect with its roots in
the early Christian Church had been copper–fastened by the foundation of the
Irish Guild of the Church in 1914, and subsequent activities – of which Douglas
Hyde’s translation of St Patrick’s Breastplate , ‘the great Trinity Hymn of Irish
Christianity’, in 1916, was a contribution. See www.ireland.anglican.org/about/131

In the
autumn of 1930, it became known that the Vatican had sanctioned the next
Eucharistic Congress to be held in Dublin in June 1932, timed to celebrate 1500
years since St Patrick’s arrival in Ireland. The Catholic Truth Society for Ireland produced its 15th centenary memorial book – St Patrick to chart the succession from St Patrick from a Roman Catholic perspective, which provided a contrasting narrative to that to be produced by the Church of Ireland. The positive spirit
of the most recent Congress held in Dublin in 2012 some 80 years later (which
included a day devoted to Christian unity and had ecumenical participation with
a Liturgy of Word and Water at which the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin
was invited to give the address www.ireland.anglican.org/news/4121) back in the 1930s, when relations between the main Churches were very
different, and the period was marked by sectarian tension.

Recent
research carried out at the RCB Library by Dr Miriam Moffitt using the papers
of Professor Walter Alison Phillips, Lecky Professor of History at Trinity College
Dublin (1914–39), has discovered that publication of the three–volume history
of the Church, which the Church of Ireland had commissioned Phillips to edit,
was deliberately timed to coincide with the 1500th anniversary, and
as a counter–weight to the Eucharistic Congress.

The year
1929 had seen the centenary celebrations of Catholic Emancipation, and as a
minority in the evolving Free State, the Protestants of Ireland including
members of the Church of Ireland, were feeling particularly sensitive, many
having perceived the events as overtly triumphalist. For example an editorial
published in the Irish Times on 22
June 1929 had complained that ‘too frequent suggestions’ were made that
Protestants represented ‘an alien creed, an alien culture and alien
aspirations’. Later the Most Revd Charles Frederick Darcy, Archbishop of Armagh
(1920–38) would publicly remark that the celebrations adopted a tone ‘of a
persecuting spirit’, while his counterpart in Dublin, the Most Revd John Allen
Fitzgerald Gregg, Archbishop of Dublin (1920–1939), anticipated a rise of
sectarian tensions by 1932, warning Phillips that ‘the drums [will] beat during
that year’. It was for this reason that he directed:

‘If,
after the offensive has taken place we come in with our reply, there is less
fear of its being ignored or swamped than if the other side has all the field
to itself to demonstrate in’.

Letter from the Most Revd John Allen Fitzgerald Gregg, Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, to Prof. W. W. Phillips, outlining the Church of Ireland’s plans for 1932, as early as the 22 June 1929, RCB Library MS 30/46

In the end,
Phillips’ three–volume history was not ready until 1933, and in June 1932
Archbishop Gregg would become embroiled in an ugly public war of words with
Cardinal Joseph MacRory, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh arising from the
Cardinal’s Lenten Pastoral in which he stated that the Church of Ireland had not
existed prior to the Reformation and furthermore that the Church ‘denounced the
Mass as a blasphemy’. In spite of the delays with the history, and against this
backdrop of sour inter–Church relations and insecurities, the Church of Ireland
had a whole series of other events in train to mark its own commemoration of St
Patrick.

In the autumn
of 1930, anticipating the potential of the 1500th anniversary to
galvanize Church of Ireland members and give them a sense of purpose, the archbishops
and bishops had begin to set in train the elaborate plans for commemoration. By
February 1931 a pastoral statement signed by ‘Charles F. Armagh and John
Dublin’ was sent to every ordained member of the church, with the order that on
St Patrick’s Day 1931 it was to be:

‘read
in every Church under our jurisdiction in which Divine Service is held’, to
encourage parishioners ‘to prepare for and join in, the Commemoration of St
Patrick in 1932, in a manner worthy of the Church of Ireland the Fifteenth
Century of the coming of this great man’.

The text of
statement, together with its covering letter can be read here.

Its tone
clearly focused to reinforce Church of Ireland identity and its continuity from
the earliest Christian heritage, reminding the hearers that the commemoration:

‘should
be not merely an occasion for remembering the past, but a time of spiritual
inspiration for our Church in the present. We are to honour the memory of one
of the greatest of our Christian Missionaries, which will remind us of the missionary
duties of the Church today. We are to think of the past glories of Irish
Christianity, which should inspire us to greater zeal for God’s glory in the
Ireland of our own time. We are to remember that we stand in a great tradition,
and that this involves a responsibility for the future of our Church. Used
aright, next year’s celebration will, under God, bring a renewal of faith and
zeal to the whole Church of Ireland’.

A form of
prayers for use on St Patrick’s Day and at other special services throughout
the year, including an anniversary service before the annual General Synod were
produced, and may be viewed
here.

Selection of the fund–raising literature, including donation envelope in circulation from February 1931

Each diocese was urged to contribute funds, as it was estimated that the
sum of £1,000 was required to cover the costs of the year. Like the pastoral
letter above, various fund–raising literature was dispatched through the Representative
Church Body headquarters at number 52 St Stephen’s Green.

A Handbook of Celebrations, Lectures and Literature
etc followed for wide distribution outlining the ‘Preparation and
Arrangements’ so that the wider Church would be well informed how the year’s
events would pan out.

Cover of A Handbook of Celebrations, Lectures and Literature etc, produced in advance to outline and educate the wider during for upcoming commemoration year of events from a Church of Ireland perspective

A short and
interesting life of St Patrick had been written by Canon Chamberlain, and
published by the Church of Ireland Printing Company at 61 Middle Abbey Street.
Copies could be purchased at the moderate price of one shilling, or one
shilling six pence for a cloth–bound edition.

Advertisement for St Patrick: his life and work, by Canon G. A. Chamberlain (rector of the Mariner’s Church Kingstown), as placed in the Church of Ireland GazetteNotice for the same work, in the context of the preparation and arrangements being outlined in the Handbook of Celebrations etc.

In addition,
a series of pamphlets were in preparation, to be ‘brought out in attractive
form, with specially designed covers’. At just one penny an item, the overall
aim was to instruct Church members in preparation for the year’s events.

The colourful pamphlet series published during 1932 to educate members of the Church of Ireland on their roots in the early Celtic Church

So too the
series of ‘lantern lectures’ with accompanying slides, prepared by the Revd W.
E. Vandaleur, Warden of the Divinity Hostel, and Mr G.A. Ruth of the Irish
Guild of the Church, which aimed to visually present Patrick’s ‘Life and
Times’; the ‘Missionary Tradition of the Irish Church’ and the ‘Connection of
the Parishes of the Church of Ireland with the ancient Irish Church’. Hiring of
each set of slides would cost 10s.6d, and would be posted for free, together
with the typed copy of each lecture.

Notice of lantern lectures from the Handbook of Celebrations etc.

Part of the poster advertising events as seen in church porches

A colourful
poster ‘for Church porches’ provided further notice of the preparatory
literature, prayers and lantern slide lectures, and also the availability of
the specially designed flag of St Patrick, for use not only on St Patrick’s Day
but at other times throughout the year, together with the badge of similar
design suitable for a ‘coat or dress’ that clergy were ordered to ‘encourage
their people to wear’.

The flag of St Patrick, as produced for the 1932 celebrations

On 9 June in
Armagh, three weeks before the Eucharistic Congress in Dublin, a special
service of commemoration was held in the diocesan cathedral – ‘founded in 444AD
by St Patrick’. Full of symbolism and highly ceremonial, the order of service
reveals that the archbishops and bishops of the Church of Ireland processed with
invited dignitaries including the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church, the
Primus of the Church of Scotland, the Archbishop of Wales, and the Archbishop
of Canterbury who preached, and an elaborate programme of music including the
English translation of the great Breastplate hymn. The Order of Service may viewed here.

Further
events followed at Saul, Belfast and Downpatrick.

Further notice of island–wide events including Saul, Downpatrick and Belfast, from the Handbook of Celebrations etc.

State of the Church of Ireland commemoration conference in October 1932: the Mansion House, Dublin, official residence of the Lord Mayor of Dublin

All was
building up of course for the main event of the year – the Church of Ireland
Conference, to be held at the Mansion House in Dublin from the 11th
to the 14th October. It is
believed that the availability of the Mansion House represented an important
ecumenical dimension to the proceedings, because the permission of the then
Lord Mayor, Alfie Byrne, who was a practicing Roman Catholic, would have had to
be secured.

Having
encouraged ‘every parish throughout the entire country’ to be represented, the
organising committee (commissioned by Archbishop Gregg from his hosting diocese
of Dublin) was in fact overwhelmed when October came around, that so many
people wished to participate. Indeed, its only organisational difficulty was
‘to find room for all’. Reduced rail fairs and special hostel rates, the efforts
a hospitality sub–committee to ensure there would be ‘closer communion’ especially
for those coming from ‘isolated parishes’ had attracted over 1000 participants.

The full conference report (including all the papers read during the proceedings) was published as The Church of Ireland 432–1932 in rapid time and available by January 1933. Edited by Revds William Bell (rector of All Saints Grangegorman) and Norman David Emerson (curate of Zion, Dublin) its completion was something of a publishing triumph

Members of the conference committee, all drawn from the diocese of Dublin, which was charged by Archbishop Gregg to organise the event

The ‘gathering’
– as the event was billed in much of the promotional literature was originally
intended to take place in one of the smaller halls of the Mansion House, but in
the event, such was the response only the Round Room – the largest available
assembly hall in the city at the time – plus an adjoining hall would suffice
for the throngs who actually attended. The Church
of Ireland Gazette editorial of 14 October 1932 observed:

‘It
is a good thing for our people to be reminded how much that is interesting is
to be learned about our own land and our own Church’.

The pitch
was clearly about boosting the confidence of the Church at large, making
connections north and south, and embedding in the hearts and minds of the people
that they belonged to the nation. In his opening address to the ‘gathering’
Archbishop Gregg reminded participants that:

‘We assemble in Conference today as the Church of a
minority in this country. We, too, have known the day of trouble. Perils on
land still confront us. Perils of divided counsels and distracting strife,
perils of civil unrest, of social disintegration and financial collapse, perils
which peculiarly beset us outside Ulster, of reduced and reducing numbers, and
I must add one more peril of inflammatory speech wherein courtesy and charity
are shrivelled up in a blaze of wild invective’.

But he
encouraged them not to despair:

‘The
situation is not entirely devoid of hopeful signs. It is easier for people to
trust themselves when they find that others trust them in the ordinary
experiences of human life. In remote places in the south and west, where our
people are but a mere fraction of the surrounding population, we find the
members of the Church of the minority trusted and respected. If honesty and
truthfulness are great virtues in national life, we find that our clergy and
laity are reputed to possess them by the community in which they live. This is,
in itself, a striking fact. For it means the Church whose faith they profess
has a valuable contribution to make to Irish life’.

Daily programme of conference events

The first two and a half days of the conference programme (Tuesday to Thursday lunchtime) were devoted to various aspects of Church of Ireland history, emphasising the continuity of succession from St Patrick, though the ‘ancient Irish period’, the medieval, Reformation and post–Reformation periods. On the Thursday afternoon, a half–day session was ‘conducted wholly in Irish’ leaving the evening session on that day, and the full day on the Friday to examine current issues. In seminars under the broad titles of the ‘Moral witness of the Irish Church’ and ‘the Church of Ireland today’ invited speakers tackled some of the burning issues of the day, on the themes of ‘War and peace’, ‘Gambling’, ‘Tolerance’ and ‘Social Service’, ‘Church and State’, ‘Education’ (both primary and secondary), ‘The Administration of the Poor Law’ (which drew specific attention to the role of Church of Ireland charities in poverty relief, most especially in the tenements of inner city Dublin) and finally ‘Church Buildings since Disestablishment (which purposefully set out to refute the ‘farcical challenge that we are using houses which we have – presumably! – stolen from some mythical owners of former days’ as the Church of Ireland Gazette reported).

Title page of the pageant play St Patrick, by Ethel Davison, which was published as part of the Official Handbook of the Church of Ireland Conference.

Performances
of the pageant play, written specifically for the conference by Ethel Davidson,
with music (much of it using the Breastplate hymn text) by George Hewson, organist
and choirmaster of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, and produced by Lennox
Robinson of the Abbey Theatre, was performed by enthusiastic cast of voluntary
actors and choral singers, adding drama to the proceedings, and bringing the
life of St Patrick to life for the audiences.

Acknowledgement of advertisers from the back page of the Official Handbook of the Church of Ireland Conference.

Hughes Brothers Dairy advertisement “purity pays” from the same source

The official
handbook of the conference, including the text of the pageant play and
accompanying advertisements – the latter provided colourful insight to the
people and businesses who supported the initiative may be viewed here.

Report of the closing service at the end of the conference, as reported in the Church of Ireland Gazette, Friday 14 October 1932.

In his
sermon preached in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, at the conclusion of the
four–day spectacle, and having journeyed with participants through their
intellectual understanding of ‘how things in Ireland came to be’, Archbishop
Gregg was able to state with conviction that ‘the Church of Ireland is the most
Irish thing there is in Ireland’.

We hope that
this presentation will serve as a tool for understanding the identity issues
facing the Church of Ireland during the 1930s, but also as a reminder of how
far the Churches have come in their journey of reconciliation in the decades
since.

We acknowledge the assistance of
Dr Miriam Moffitt, who is preparing a historiography of the Church of Ireland,
including further background on the writing and reception of W.A. Phillips’ History of the Church of Ireland, for
sharing her research.

All of the
original materials may be viewed in the RCB Library, Dublin.

Headline banner from poster would have been seen in every church porch throughout Ireland.

Direct Link – A Handbook of Celebrations, Lectures and Literature to commemorate the 1500 anniversary of the coming of St Patrick to Ireland

Direct Link – The Official Handbook for the Church of Ireland Conference, the Mansion House, Dublin, October 1932

Direct Link – The Form of Prayer devised for use during the St Patrick Commemorations 1932

Direct Link – Order of Service for the 1500th anniversary of the coming of St Patrick to Ireland, held at Armagh Cathedral, 9 June 1932